


Let My Baby Stay

by hannrose



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: "person a sings and person b finds out their in love" trope, F/M, Quick Read, artist!MJ, inspo by a twitter post, this is a shorty!!, too lazy to delete that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 01:21:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17012853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannrose/pseuds/hannrose
Summary: peter would never, in a million years, like michelle jones. not even when hes confronted by his best friend and her angelic singing voice, at the same time.





	Let My Baby Stay

**Author's Note:**

> this is a lil one shot. inspo by this twitter post: https://twitter.com/SpideyxMj/status/1074070213199626251 i hope yall enjoy!! the songs mj sings are let my baby stay and breezeblocks <3

Peter didn’t know why he was acting  _ weird _ around Michelle. In fact, he wasn’t even aware that he wasn’t being normal until Ned pointed it out. And then, he couldn’t stop being weird.

 

Ned told Peter that, sometimes, Peter just stared at Michelle all class period. At first Ned thought Peter was day dreaming, but then his eyes followed her movements as she walked to the pencil sharpener, as she dropped the pencil, as she bent over to pick  _ up _ the pencil… Ecetera. Ned also mentioned that Peter was beginning to stutter more, but only when Michelle was wearing her gym clothes. He noted that Peter’s face would get red, and most days, he would ask to go to the bathroom. And then, something  _ really _ odd happened--when Michelle finally decided to go on the ski trip, Peter pulled her in for a hug.

 

Now, that was odd for multiple reasons. Yes, Peter was a  _ huggy _ person, he liked hugs and didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Michelle, though, had never even grazed hands with Peter before that. They kept minimal distance of three feet; it was an unspoken agreement. And she hugged back. She wrapped her arms around his waist, albeit in a flimsy manner, but Michelle didn’t hug anybody. When they won the national Decathlon, she stayed frozen in her seat while everyone else hugged her. There was a difference.

 

The embrace lasted for three seconds. Ned had watched in horror. When were they ever nice to each other to warrant that length? Michelle called Peter loser every afternoon and stole half of his cookie stash at lunch. Peter threw paper balls at her when the teacher had his back turned and would write things like, ‘ _ Fight me after school behind the gym. I’m serious. _ ’ and, ‘ _ Fuck your writing essay wins, if you ever bring those up again I’ll literally kick your ass. _ ’ And, when he talked about how frustrated Michelle made him, Ned believed it. At least, that’s what he told Peter.

 

He also told him something that only Peter’s aunt and crackheads alike would think. As they stood in line, preparing to get on the bus for the ski trip, Ned whispered in Peter’s ear, “You  _ like _ her. You  _ like _ like her. You wanna marry her, have her babies, and die next to her.” 

 

It was an insane idea. Peter had never even, in his entire time of knowing her, thought about Michelle Jones like that. She was abrasive towards him and difficult to be around, why would Peter  _ ever _ consider that?

 

But, in the rare moments of Michelle softening up, Peter could see it. Why  _ other _ people would like her, of course. He enjoyed it when she drew him, he liked how comfortable he was to be in complete silence with her, and he liked how, once every so often, she’d pay him back for all the half eaten cookies with a tin full of baked goods she had made herself. Michelle was really good at baking.

 

What Peter didn’t like was how she would tease him about the tin full of pastries. “I might have poisoned a few,” she’d joke. Her face would remain flat, though, so for a while he would think she was serious. Peter had enemies, so to say, and he couldn’t take risks. He didn’t like how in the comfortable silences, she’d kick him because she would get bored. He didn’t like how, after Michelle was finished drawing him, she’d throw the drawing away. What if he wanted to keep that? Why did she have to tear it up? In his  _ face _ ?

 

And like God had it out for him, Michelle reserved a spot just for Peter. Ned stuck out his tongue and put up two thumbs, as if saying,  _ Get it, tiger! _ Peter was sweating. He didn’t like Michelle. And if he got his voice back, he would scream it at the top of his lungs.

 

Michelle had one earbud in, the other resting on her sketchpad. She was drawing him, again, adding in the beanie he was wearing and the new scar underneath his eye. “Usually when I draw the same person a lot,” she commented, “It all looks the same. There’s always one thing off with you, Peter.”

 

Michelle said it like a compliment.

 

She kept glancing between him and her sketchpad, biting her lip in intense focus and forcibly moving his head to the correct angle. That day, Michelle was doing a full page portrait. It wasn’t a million little doodles of his head (he assumed it was only to fill up the hours), so Michelle was trying to get as much detail as possible.

 

Eventually, when she started adding shading, her attention to Peter had faded. She glided her pencil across the page,  _ both _ of her earbuds now blasting music to her brain, and Michelle was ever so lightly singing. 

 

“ _ Please don’t take my love away _ ,” she whispered, her voice giving out on the high parts. “ _ Let my baby stay _ .”

 

Peter watched her. Michelle closed her eyes on the slow parts so she could really get into it. She restarted the song three times; it must’ve been her favorite. “ _ I was made to love her _ ,” she had hummed for the third time, smiling as she did.

 

It hurt his neck to watch. He kept it craned the whole time instead of just moving his body, but  _ wow _ , what a sight to watch. Michelle being carefree, without a care in the world that Peter was sitting there and listening to her. She was grinning. She never grinned. The sunlight poured through the windows, and shone onto her face, illuminating every curve and crevasse.

 

“ _ And she’s been good to me _ ,” Michelle continued. “ _ Far as I can tell she’s happy, living with her Macky _ .”

 

She was a good singer, Peter concluded. He wanted to hear her sing more, and to sing  _ louder _ , but he knew this was probably a once in a blue moon kind of thing. Maybe Michelle didn’t even know she was singing.

 

With that idea in his head, Peter wanted to record her. He wanted to keep this moment for forever, and to listen to it when he was sad. Like in  _ Baby Driver _ , he thought, how Baby had recorded Deborah’s voice the very first time they’d met. He watched that movie in theaters with Ned and Michelle, and during that scene, Peter had looked over at Michelle. He didn’t know why. He just did.

 

“Done. Do you like it?” She held it up to show him. Everything was amazing--except the phrase she’d written on his hat.

 

“‘ _ World’s biggest idiot _ ’?” Peter read.

 

“Whoever gets a scar like that from falling down the stairs deserves this title. Congratulations, Parker.” Michelle smiled in a way that exasperated Peter. Then, she closed her sketchbook and stuffed it into her backpack.

 

“You’re keeping it?”

 

She winked at him, and began to stare out the window. Michelle finally let the song change, and after a while, she began to absentmindedly sing again. “ _ Please don’t go, I’ll eat you whole, I love you so _ .” Her words were no heavier than a feather hitting the ground, but Peter could hear  _ so _ clearly.

 

And when she’d sing the words, ‘ _ I love you so _ ’, well-- Maybe, his heart would swell. Maybe he closed his eyes and thought of a future where they were at prom, or something, and they had gone together. And maybe Michelle looked beautiful in a yellow gown--the only yellow gown in the whole room--and maybe there were fairy lights plastered everywhere, making it look like she was even more of a princess. And maybe,  _ just maybe _ , Peter saw himself, slow dancing with her, proclaiming his love for her.

 

But, was Ned right? No, Peter didn’t think so, still. It wasn’t as if, either, he thought about it the whole way up, halfway through giving Michelle his jacket because she was cold. Even though Peter, himself, was freezing.

 

Okay, whatever. Ned was right. Peter liked her, wanted to marry her, have her babies, and die next to her.

  
_ Whatever _ .


End file.
